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The Blues for LEDs
Corey Burger writes "Seems somebody rolled out of bed on the wrong side today. The Globe and Mail's Ian Johnson delivers up a rant about the ubiquity of the new blue LEDs."
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In any event, isn't unification what we're looking for now in computing? Isn't it a nice thing (that has spun an entire cottage-industry of mods and such) that we can get our computer "look and feel" to match our decor? To match itself, for that matter? Looking around my desk, I see some green, red, yellow, and orange LEDs. I would be tickled if they could all be more unified. With, of course, the exception of my HDD LEDs, which I like to be able to notice out of the corner of my eye.
Sounds to me like someone's got a case of the (pre-)Mondays. ;)
First I don't believe his list of items. I buy a lot of high tech items and unless I just bought everything new yesterday and hunted around for blue LED versions of products, I don't think I could gather a list of devices so extensive, all with blue LEDs.
That said....unless someone gives him all his devices for free then geesh just buy different devices! If you are getting all your devices for free and then you have the nerve to complain about the color of the LED then shut your friggin pie hole before I give you a punch in the throat.
It's those Xenon HID headlights I hate. You know, the ultra-bright, kinda bluish ones that blind you late at night as they come around the curve. Those seem bright enough to be unsafe.
It's a matter of popularity. We've seen red, green, yellow and amber colored LED's since some 30 years now, they're "passe". Blue LED's on the other hand (as well as White and Cyan) are colors that have become possible just 10 years ago, and they where still very expensive and not really efficient. It's in the last 4 or 5 years, that techology has allowed cheap, efficient and bright blue LED's.... maybe that's why they seem to look so.... cool!
Just the other day, one of my friends just got a new Nextel and the mobile DC cigarette lighter plug has this annoyingly bright Blue LED on it. He's pissed, says it totally destroys his night vision and it's about 100x brighter than it needs to be to verify the cigarette lighter adapter is bottomed out.
I remember when Blue LED's were first introduced in the April 1 issue of Byte Magazine (sometime around 1987 IIRC) as an April Fool's joke! Finally, two or three years later they were actually invented!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Exactly what I was thinking. If he doesn't like blue LEDs, then he didn't really need to buy a new monitor, handheld scanner, webcam, USB hub, Bluetooth access point, WiFi adapter, desktop volume control for his speakers, external hard drive, video editing peripheral, keyboard, home theatre, wireless music gateway, USB keychain drive, and portable MP3 player, all apparently in the "recent months".
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Single-person boycotts don't work.
Individuals deciding what they do and don't like then buying what they like and not what they don't is exactly how markets do normally work.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
It really pisses me off.
The Blue sky has a piercing clarity that draws the eye immediately, and which can mesmerize. And at night, the stars shimmer, they twinkle, and they can be incredibly intense for such tiny points of light -- they're really quite beautiful. The problem is they're suddenly everywhere.
Sorry...I must've rolled out of bed the wrong side too.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The Blue LED howto:
Part 1 - dimming.
1. Go to the hardware shop and pick up some masking tape.
2. Cut a piece sufficiently large to cover the offending LED
3. Place the tape over the LED
4. Repeat from step 2 until the LED is sufficiently dim.
Part 2 - Blocking
1. Go to the hardware shop and pick up a nice hammer drill and a drill bit of similar diameter as the LED
2. Turn the device with the LED off.
3. Drill the shit out of the LED*
*Or, drill the shit out of your eyes. Therefore, removing the need to block any other blue LEDS that you may have on your "look at me I am a techy" gadgets.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Ian Johnson, I feel your pain. Why, just the other day, my butler Jeeves remarked to me, "Sir, I find myself incapable of sleeping ever since you installed your 100" plasma computer monitor. The blue LED keeps me up all night."
And I'm regretting giving the cleaning staff new blue-LED-equipped brooms last week. Those hundreds of dancing broom-handles put me in such a dreadful mood. How can I concentrate on exploiting those massively regressive tax-cuts when all those lights keep dancing in my brain?
Indeed.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
Have you ever stood in front of a SUN Fire 6800 cabinet? They have a big sucker of a SUN logo illuminated by those blue LEDs...
:-)
So shiny... Happy happy happy... Must drool and watch... can't resist...
I'm still waiting for the Octalus-like big mouth with needle-sharp fangs coming out of the cabinet snatching for my head
Yalla.
You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
Even better:
1. Disassemble device
2. Locate offending LED
3. Apply heat (solder iron) and remove LED
4. If so desired, replace it with an LED of different color using the solder iron and resin.
5. Reassemble device
$cat
Red LEDs are definitely great for brake lights. I've gotten really fond of amber LEDs for turn signals, even though they're still ridiculously expensive compared to incandescent bulbs. I converted my car's turn signals to LEDs here.
I'll probably convert the tail lights pretty soon. Having to replace any signal bulb once is one time too many, I think.
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
The attraction is that for many years blue LEDs were nearly impossible to fabricate. Next, they were expensive and inefficient. Next, just expensive. Now, the old problems are gone and they have the highest light output per watt of all LEDs, and they're filling a pent-up demand dating back three decades.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
4a. Replace corresponding series resistor.
Blue LEDs typically have a forward voltage greater than standard red/green/yellow ones. If you don't use a correctly-calculated series resistor, a lower voltage LED will receive more current and become a super-high-tech Black LED shortly after powerup.
ever hook up a stock LED to the power pack taken out of a polaroid camera.... LED went bright, then dim, then exploded hitting me above the eye with a chunk of plastic...
Snowden and Manning are heroes.